SERBIA - National review no. 13

Prologue

Spring has finally arrived, around us and (hopefully) inside us. And while many others are scaring you with the tottering parasitic empire of speculative capital which will pull your home down too by the end of this year, while they are showing you designed disastrous images to prepare you to swallow new repressive and restrictive laws without thinking – we will encourage you this time too to remember the billion and one beautiful and important things which really depend on you. The numerous precious ”little things than make life worthwhile”, which make ourselves and the world around us better, more noble. More pervaded by the divine.

GALLERY

CONTENTS

Prologue
HOW MUCH REALLY DEPENDS ON US
Spring Mirror

Panorama
”Zlatni beočug” Award to ”Princip Press”
The Lasting Contribution to the Culture of Belgrade

The Beautiful Face of Serbia
PHOTOS BY MILINKO STEFANOVIĆ

Visit
BEOČIN, EMBRACED BY THE DANUBE AND FRUŠKA GORA
On a Ferry to the New Era
Many things have changed in this corner of Srem since the introduction of new technology and new standards in the ”Beočin Cement Factory”. There are no more grey roofs, dusty streets, desolated fields. The city has taken off the cement shirt it had been stoically wearing for more than a century and opened space for different forms of development. Several hundred hectares of vineyards and orchards have been planted, the ”Fruška Gora” National Park and old monasteries are again in full bloom, the Danube banks are revived, an international port and auto camp are about to be constructed… There are problems, big ones; however they are there to be solved, and not to serve as an excuse for self-pity

By: Zoran Plavšić
Photo: Olivera, Ognjen and Ismet Ademovski

Visiting
PRIBOJ, THE CENTRE OF LOWER LIM, FACING NEW DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES
The Centre of the Magic Circle
For decades now, this area has based its prosperity on the famous Automobile Factory (FAP). Industrial problems during sanctions and wars in the 1990’s have forced highlanders to understand again the values of their beautiful river, their spa, their medieval heritage, their urban culture and unusual sensibility, as well as the fact that in the radius of 40 kilometres around Priboj are Mileševa, Zlatar, Zlatibor, Tara, Mokra Gora, Višegrad...

By: Nenad Despotović

Road sign
ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE YEARS OF RIBARSKA BANJA (SPA), ON THE SLOPES OF JASTREBAC
The Tradition of a Royal Vacation
It is said that Stefan Nemanja got the property on which these wonderful springs are located, as a gift for his adulthood. Princess Milica also visited this area, coming from her palace in Kruševac. Moreover, the tragic Queen Draga Obrenović had her baths here. However, the most loyal guest was King Petar I Karađorđević, for whom they built the unusual Kraljeve stepenice. Can anyone today imagine that they were there by accident?

By: Dragica Bajić
Photos by: Dragan Bosnić

Edifices
PALACES IN VOJVODINA, CULTURAL GOODS AND WITNESSES OF PAST TIMES
About Magnificence and Transience
Splendorous ballroom music, jingling of jewelry and high heels, murmuring in many languages still echo in these Baroque and Classicist ballrooms. People came to receptions all the way from Vienna, Pest and Belgrade, legendary card games were played, an apple on the head of a countess was shot, men cried for women and horses. This is where Laza Kostić, ”from the bottom of life” sang to Lenka Dundjerski, Franc List had his first public performance at the age of nine, queen Marija Karadjordjević came to family visits with her sons Petar, Andrej and Tomislav... Some of them today house museums, libraries, schools, hotels, while some are, unfortunately, completely desolated

By: Helena Duković
Photo: Dragan Bosnić

Waters
ANOTHER NAUTICAL SEASON OPENS AT BELGRADE RIVERS
Charm of the Belgrade View of the World
During the previous year, 401 cruisers (ship-hotel) arrived into the Sava wharf and over 55.000 foreign tourists landed. For the new season, practically even before its official beginning, 423 cruisers from the whole world are scheduled to dock. Two million Euros were invested in the wharf alone, the place of the first meeting of numerous foreigners with Belgrade and it is now in accordance with the highest standards of the European Union

Text: Dada Raković & NR Press
Photo: Dragan Bosnić

New Summer
MORE THAN NOSTALGIA: THE RETURN OF CAMPING
Million Houses on Wheels
Camping today covers 23 percent of the total number of tourist trips in Europe. There are about 35 million users of camping services, with 350 million overnight stays in about 30.000 camps. The total consumption in the camping industry is about 5 billion Euros, while other tourism related spending of campers amounts to about 15 billion. The revitalization of camps in Serbia according to the European Association standards has just begun, there are 16 so far, and the demand is multiply higher than the capacities on disposal

NR Press
Photo: Dragan Bosnić

Projects
THE TOWN OF SENJSKI RUDNICI, INSTEAD OF CLOSING WITH ITS COALMINE, IS ON ITS WAY TO BECOME THE NEW CULTURAL AND TOURIST CENTRE
The Sudden Dawn
On last year’s Donors Conference of the Council of Europe, the European Commission included the mining town in Resava on the list of seventeen monuments in Southeast Europe, which have a priority in revitalization. The renovation is not limited only on the preservation of historic and artistic values of this monument of industrial development, but also includes the strengthening of local community and economy of its sustainable development. How should that be done

Text by: Milica Božić and National Review Press
Photographs by: Sandro Weltin

Findings
EXCLUSIVELY: SPECTACULAR FINDING OF ARCHEOLOGISTS IN THE VICINITY OF BELGRADE
At the Gates of the Neolith City
In the village of Stubline near Obrenovac, about forty kilometers southwest from the capital, a large 6.000 years old settlement was discovered. Geomagnetic recordings show more than a hundred houses, streets and squares, defensive trenches, as well as numerous smaller settlements in the radius of about fifteen kilometers. After exploring only one of the ten smallest and worst preserved houses, the findings are already extraordinary

NR Press
Photo: Adam N. Crnobrnja, M.A.

Crowns
SERBIAN SOIL – HOMELAND OF ROMAN EMPERORS: CONSTANTIUS II (337-361)
An Arian on the Throne
Son of Constantine the Great, educated and diplomatic, won many important victories without arms. ”Defeated is also the one who surrenders, because he feels we do not lack toughness against the rebelled nor mercy for the ones who beg.” He triumphed in the civil war and renewed the heritage of his father, defeated the Quadi and the Sarmatians, when he was named Sarmatian. He had been in war against the Persians for a long time and with variable luck. His road to death was the same one Alexander the Great took before him

By: Professor Aleksandar Jovanović (Ph.D.)

Road Watchmen
SERBIAN MEDIEVAL TOWNS: ZVEČAN
One Town, Many Battles
We know for sure that it was a Serbian fortification back in the 11th century. Vukan challenged Aleksios I Komnenos to a duel at that very place and Stefan Nemanja challenged his brothers. An important road junction, at the mouth of Sitnica into Ibar was controlled from it, and since the 13th century, precious mining digs in Trepča. Except Serbs, there were Saxons, people from Dubrovnik, Kotor, and Split... We do not know for sure when the palace in the Upper Town and St. George’s Chapel were torn down, then towers and gates, warehouses and stairways but we know that Stefan Dečanski spent his last days here, imprisoned. The town became deserted in the end of the 17th century, after an unsuccessful attempt of the Austrian people to conquer it from the Turks

By: Vojislav Filipović
Illustrations by: Predrag Todorović

Famous Loves
KING ALEKSANDAR OBRENOVIĆ (1867-1903) AND QUEEN DRAGA (1861-1903)
Furious Force of Love
He was the only son of King Milan Obrenović and Russian aristocrat Natalia Kesko. He went to school in Paris and Belgrade, and became king at the age of thirteen, when his father abdicated in 1889. She was the daughter of Pantelija Lunjevica, county chief of Gornji Milanovac, and at the age of nineteen the widow of the respectable engineer Svetozar Mašin. She was educated, spoke three foreign languages, wrote for the newspaper under the pseudonym Rudničarka. Their paths intersected one summer in the mondain Biarritz. Their bedroom became the main state issue in Serbia and the place of their horrible death. Such death is not only their fate

By: Milena Z. Bogavac

Centuries of Existence
790 YEARS OF EXISTENCE OF THE INDEPENDENT SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH IN 2009
Immortality under St. Sava’s Name
The iconostasis in old Serbian endowments was completed with icons of dynasties of holy Serbs whose founder was St. Sava (Nemanjić). Thus Serbian monasteries became altars of the homeland. The iconostasis is actually an ancient Serbian book. Whoever moved away from the light of the iconostasis, even if he would move to areas of the same faith (to Russia, for example), he would stop being a Serb. Even today, the Serbs cannot return to themselves without the one who determined their path, nor can they determine what is theirs without the one who gave them all the title deeds

By: Milovan Vitezović

Belvederes
SVETISLAV BOŽIĆ, GREAT MODERN COMPOSER INSPIRED BY HERITAGE, EXCLUSIVELY FOR NATIONAL REVIEW
Trust in the Creator
Creative and active reading of the manuscript of tradition, spirituality and culture is one of the important measures of protecting oneself from the overaggressive trivialities of the outside world. However, one cannot turn ideologically rather than spiritually to the long ago overcome role models and bad interpretations with pale refrains. Gifted individuals, aware of the meaning and origins of their gift, responsible towards it and the community they belong to, still have a chance and are a true support

By: Maja Radonić
Photo: Dragan Bosnić

Seventh Art
YUGOSLAV FILM ARCHIVE CELEBRATES ITS 60TH ANNIVERSARY
Treasury of the XX Century Memories
Film, the incomparable civilization and socio-cultural phenomenon, has not changed the century behind us, but has undoubtedly marked it. The modern language of the XXI century is also the language of film, language of motion pictures. The collection of films held at the Belgrade Film Archive, about 95.000 copies, is one of the three most significant in the world, and represents world heritage

By: Danijela Petrović
Photo: Film Archive

Ars sacra
SLAVOLJUB RADIVOJEVIĆ, THE PAINTER WHO BRAVELY BUILDS HIS OWN MYTH ABOUT LIFE IN HAPPINESS
Origins of Great Melancholy
In the time of crisis and drop of all values, mainly aesthetic, when technicism and nihilism suppress art as well as feelings and sensuality, this painter started from the intimate, from love towards a child, woman, city and sea. Amidst social and aesthetic chaos, similar to Giorgio Morandi and some masters between two wars, he returned to little things, silence of the studio, his world, outside the sound and the fury of senile post-modern art, and tells his story with the language of fine arts

By: Dejan Djorić

Worlds
MORE THAN LITERATURE: THE NEW EDITION OF THE NOVEL ”VUK” (”WOLF”) BY MIROSLAV KUSMUK
A Book as a Remedy and a Weapon
He was only 22 years old when he was wounded on the Sarajevo battlefields in the cervical part of the spine, and he is left permanently in his wheel chair. Since then, for 13 years, he is fighting and teaching us to keep the flame of life and our spirit. He can only write with the little finger of his right hand, but his thoughts are clear, his will is never-ending and his heart is filled with peace. The novel ”Vuk” and its second edition published by ”Princip Press” is a true testimony of his life

By: Neda Simić Žerajić

Media
”F TRAVEL”, ONE OF THE LEADING PROMOTERS OF SERBIAN TOURISM
Television of Your Journeys
Travel accounts, promotional movies, promotions of tourist destinations and potentials, programs which do not create ballast yet educate, are the axes of this specialized tourism television, unique in Serbia. Many viewers see it in the country and abroad through the cable systems, satellite signals and internet, which makes it competitive with big media companies, and significantly helps Serbia gain a better position in the international tourism market

By: Djordje Dragojlović
Photo: Mihalj Novak

Health
PROFESSOR DOCTOR MARKO BUMBAŠIREVIĆ, A MICRO SURGEON ORTHOPAEDIST, THE DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE FOR TRAUMATOLOGY AND ORTHOPAEDICS OF THE CLINICAL CENTRE OF SERBIA
The World Elite
The descendant of Serbian heroes of World War I, he stepped into the world by learning from better and more skilful men than himself, and then he was called to teach. He is one of the five best micro-surgeons in the world. His Belgrade clinic includes the toughest operations of reattaching detached extremities, hip fractures, artificial articulations, but the hospital conditions are far from being ideal...

By: Jagoda Plavšić

Health
THE SPECIALIZED HOSPITAL ”MERKUR” FROM VRNJAČKA BANJA INTRODUCING NEW PROGRAMS
Living with Diabetes
With the decision of the Republic Health Institute, this hospital became the National Centre for the prevention of diabetes and for education of diabetics. In Serbia, there are more than one half of million registered diabetics, and in ”Merkur” they can learn everything about the illness and also how to fight it

Builders
BORISLAV NOVAKOVIĆ, THE MANAGER OF THE TOWN BUILDING INSTITUTE OF NOVI SAD
Great Building Projects
Two new bridges on the Danube, a big modern marine, the boulevards of Subotica and Sombor, the central town depurator of dishwater, the infrastructure equipping of the new industrial zone and the technological park – these are all capital projects which will enable the quick development and the economic strengthening of Novi Sad and its vicinities

Gastronomy
GAME CANNELLONI IN ”UNIVERZITET TURS” RESTAURANT
Long-Living Recipes